


A Not-Very-Gay Live Show

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Defensive Dan, Evil Dan, Gay Rights, Hurt Phil, Live Stream, M/M, Marriage Equality, real story, vote yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:26:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Phil's live stream reaches a critical point when an Anti-Marriage Equality debate surfaces in the comments. Dan saves Phil from being caught having an emotional breakdown live on the internet by fighting the aggressor himself.Based on an actual argument between my homophobic uncle and me on social media. The Anti-Marriage Equality piece I include in this fic is almost an exact copy and paste of one of his hateful, disrespectful replies to me. The only edits I made to the original comment were for clarity.





	1. The Live Show

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, so to give some context, in Australia we are voting on "whether The Marriage Act should be changed to include same-sex attracted couples". It's ridiculous enough that my rights as a gay should be decided by others in a vote already BUT WHATEVER.
> 
> My uncle has been posting really hateful anti-marriage equality things for a few weeks and I finally got sick of it. Being a gay man myself, it really is not nice to read about and I felt I had to stand up to him. So, I responded with a reasonable and respectful argument online, telling him that he is not right to suggest that the proposed changes to The Marriage Act to allow LGBT to wed will in some way detract from the unions of already wed heterosexual couples, or affect the national curriculum in any way that teaches children "politically correct" theories about gender etc. Basically, he hijacked the debate and took it to unrelated topics because deep down the poor sod knows he has no argument. He essentially told me that I have no right to claim that I care about children because I am not a father myself...
> 
> This fic is my response to him, and my dark imaging of what I would say and do if I were to allow him the satisfaction of further discussion. It's 3am and I am just so fucking pissed off. Enjoy.

Phil struggled to keep up with the comments streaming through the Younow chat like wildfire. He’d gotten quite good at reading the short and uncomplicated ones after so many years of doing live shows. He supposed that the difficulty might have been helped by Dan, who joined him for the live show and had just let loose his ‘heart eyes’ at Phil. Yep, that’s why the comment box was breaking.

‘omg dads!!!!!’

‘sooooo cuteeeeee <333’

‘fuck just get married already sick of this shit they clearly are in love’

‘do we gotta wait until 2022?’

‘LOOOOK AT HIM mY hEaRT!’

And among all this, Phil froze as he read one comment in particular. He’d never had a problem maintaining a positive composure during the live shows, but he was always aware that he couldn’t just edit out the bits where he wasn’t his usual bubbly camera character. But this was different.

‘Gays like these two faggots shouldn’t be allowed to marry anyway, what next you libtard snowflake pussies? 62 genders being taught in schools? Fuck’s sake there’s only two genders male and female. Basic biology you fucking idiots. Allowing this fucking garbage law is gonna ruin our innocent children’s minds. Say no to the fags. #childrensrights’

The commenter, danandphil(aregay)trash, was clearly a troll out to be heard, copying the hateful words and pasting them into the chat over and over again so that at least someone would read it. Phil could tell that Dan hadn’t been paying attention to the chat as he mused about life and anime and all sorts of weird memes.

Phil’s heart sank further and further as he could feel the smile leave his face and his heart pound. The comment read like such an accusation, as if Phil’s homosexuality, although unproven to the fanbase, was no longer a secret. No longer his personal information.

He finally pieced together the entire comment and was honestly not sure how to respond. He could feel a tear well up behind his eyes as he considered whether he was strong enough to say anything about it.

The comment section soon exploded into fighting as emotional fans allied themselves against the anonymous commenter. No one could follow anything but Dan sensed there was something up with Phil.

The older man averted his eyes from the camera to look anywhere else. With a look in his eyes, Dan knew what had happened. It wasn’t often that either of them got offended by comments online after so many years of putting up with a mixed bag of reactions.

Dan saw the pain behind his friend’s attempt to remain positive and bubbly, and they were both sure that the fans saw it too. The comments soon again exploded with mostly angry reactions.

‘HOW DARE U DON’T U SEE WHAT U DID TO MY POOR PHIL HE’S SO SAD’

‘fuck off you stupid wanker’

‘you’re fucking 12 with your stupid immature comments fuck off we don’t want you here’

‘love only please!’

Dan kicked into action to calm everyone down as he realised that there was no escape during a live show. They couldn’t make a habit of backing down from a debate like this.

“Hey, whoa guys… calm down in the comments please, it’s getting a little bit heated,” Dan said, giving a chuckle to convince everyone that he wasn’t too displaced by the fighting. In fact, Dan was worried to the bone about what Phil was thinking. Feeling. The boy had gone completely pale and looked so lost.

“Guys, let me just take the camera and we’ll have a chat about what someone in the comments wrote, yeah?” The comments again exploded with more people blaming the anonymous commenter for inciting so much hate and causing Dan to actually stop the flow of the live show to address the issue. Dan tried to act convincingly when he snatched the camera away from the desk and put it solely on his face to avoid Phil being caught in the frame.

“Right shit’s getting personal, this type of argument goes around so much and honestly it makes me really angry so excuse me Philip but I’m commandeering this camera and this live show,” Dan stated, hoping that his cheeks had gone red enough with ‘anger’ to justify him taking the camera off of Phil. The last thing he wanted was for people to think any of it had affected his friend so personally.

“Regardless of whatever happens with same sex marriages in this country, education is a completely separate issue and no changes to The Marriage Act will EVER mean an automatic change to curriculum, so no, kids aren’t gonna automatically be taught that there are 75 genders and be told that they can use whatever bathroom they like or anything like this directly in schools. The government won't enforce that as a direct result of gay marriage being legalised. It will have to be debated as a separate issue. This is about The Marriage Act only. This is only gonna happen if there’s actual evidence to support it and the education department feels like it’s necessary for kids to learn at school. So to that one individual, respectfully please stop yourself, shut up, and just let people live their lives.”

Dan’s rant came to an end, and he took a moment to ‘re-adjust’ the camera so that the viewers momentarily could only see Dan’s hand. He looked at Phil, who had a bit of redness to his eyes, but nothing seriously wrong. Dan gave him a smile, and a really bad wink, something to say ‘it’s okay, I’m here to support you’, and to make his friend laugh. The two exchanged a nod as Dan positioned the camera on the desk to put both of them in the frame.

“Sorry about that guys, Dan gets really passionate about these things,”

“And as you can see I definitely don’t have a problem hijacking Phil’s live show to rant about it.”

Dan smiled at himself when he thought about how good the two worked together as a team to avoid a huge meltdown among their fans.

The two finished the rest of the live show without any further incident, and when it ended and the camera was turned off, Phil could only let out a huff and bury his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry Dan, I couldn’t help it and I read the stupid comment and it just got to me and made me angry,” Phil said, mumbling the words out through his tired body.

“It’s okay, it’s really not your fault. It made me angry too, but hey we managed it alright together didn’t we?” Dan reassured. Even though the two friends weren’t in love, Dan still knew that he loved his friend in the most innocent way and wouldn’t let himself live it down if he ever let Phil feel unsupported or unprotected or unloved.

Dan pulled his friend into his arms and they remained like that for a few minutes as Phil sobbed.

“I really am sorry Dan, it wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t reading the comments,” Phil said once again.

“It’s not your fault, as I said Phil. I wanted to stick up for you, like any good friend would.”

Dan knew that Phil wasn’t entirely comfortable with the world knowing his sexual preference, and they both knew that Phil wasn’t exactly likely to ever marry a woman. The fear of someone ‘guessing’ his orientation in the comments in such a malicious way and inciting conversation about it always made him nervous. But in a live show where his every move was being monitored, Phil couldn’t help but break under the pressure to keep being AmazingPhil.

 

A few hours later, the two friends found themselves on the couch eating take-out pizza, with Phil still curled up in Dan’s arms as he scrolled through Twitter.

“Dan, thank-you so much for what you did in the live show. All the Tweets about what you said flooding in are so positive-” Phil paused as his eyes came to a string of argumentative retweets on a thread belonging to the user danandphil(aregay)trash.

“Phil, don’t worry about it… the troll just has a few accounts on different platforms. Don’t even bother.” He hugged his friend a bit tighter just to take his attention off his phone. But he knew Phil. His friend was just too curious and sweet to not investigate further.

‘@danhowell you and your friend are still wankers and gay faggots. Read my piece _here_.’

Phil became even more darkly curious, and so found himself being redirected to a page containing an essay.

**‘Why It’s Never Okay To Support Gay Marriage’.**

_‘Their views on homosexuality and marriage are naïve and idealistic millennial bullshit. They will never know the drive motivation anxiety of a father like me to stick up for #childrensrights. Sorry but changing constitutional definition of marriage will change what our kids are being taught at school. They clearly don’t care about kids. Aside from naïve idealistic millennial self centred teenagers of the world, yes most lgbt are self centred and apathetic to future generations outside their lurid lgbt world mainly because they WON’T produce offspring… Blood is ALWAYS thicker than water. Anyway let’s revisit this conversation when you have become a dad, I’ll even shout the beers. Until then ... Cheers’_

Phil couldn’t hold back his anger as he screamed into Dan’s shoulder. Dan too felt the heartbreak at such a selfish and uneducated braindead human being. They assumed that only fathers cared about children. Assumed that an entire generation and an entire community were self centred. But most hurtfully, they assumed that it’s all because lgbt wouldn’t produce offspring. As if overpopulating the world further meant anything to one’s priorities or concerns in society. It was just infuriating and made Dan want to scream himself.

“Dan I don’t think I can go one like this. I’m always afraid of people guessing that I’m gay or even thinking that I can’t have even just that one part of who I am to myself. It’s so exhausting…” Phil cried. And it was true. It was exhausting and people like this never helped. They had nothing valuable to add. They were mostly delusional people who hijacked debates to discuss other unrelated issues. And then dared to claim that they had beings as innocent as children in their minds as they did it. When really, it was a huge farce.

“Phil, people like this just know that they have no argument so they make up bullshit.”


	2. Blood Thicker than Water

**One Week Later**

 

A man woke from his comfortable bed, to leave his wife lying next to him to sleep a little longer. He crept down the stairs of the respectably large house, being careful to avoid waking his three children.

The man began to brew a cup of coffee to start his day. He had important things to do. Like go to work. And provide for the family that he loved so much. The family whose rights he constantly had in mind as he fought every day for the best world he could afford them.

The morning dragged on until the man got dressed into a suit that was beginning to become too small for him. It was when he left the house for work that he saw a rather large plain box sitting on the doorstep with a note attached. The man bent down to pick the note up first.

 

_Dearest Danandphil(aregay)trash,_

_I hope you are enjoying a lovely day filled with all the benefits of being born as a first class citizen. A heterosexual man with what seems like a comfortable home life with your child(ren), who is lucky enough to be legally recognised as the husband of a woman who also enjoys these same privileges._

_I am writing to you to respectfully inform you that your argument against marriage equality is weaker than the beer you proposed we drink. How cold it must get on the high ground you have constructed for yourself after our chat on the live show. I hope you don’t get altitude sickness up there._

_I don’t know whether I’ll ever become a father myself, but it must feel nice to be condescending to those who are not parents themselves by suggesting, ridiculously, that your views are somehow legitimised by a child. How dare you presume my priorities and concerns for the generation ahead, how dare you senselessly and maliciously categorise an entire community with the most awful attributes. Your words bring shame to you and bamboozle the proper meaning of what it is to be a father who is supportive of his children and the young everywhere._

_Lastly, I was particularly struck by your proverb. I am increasingly glad that we are not relatives by blood, I assume. What I love about water personally is that it is always transparent, and very nourishing. I hope your blood is so thick that it clots in your very veins and kills you._

_But perhaps we needn’t wait that long._

 

The man’s heart began to beat faster with a hint of fear as questions ran through his mind.

‘How did this person find me? What do they want? What are they going to do? What is in this box?’

As predicted, the man couldn’t hold back his curiosity. He ripped the tape securing the lid of the box and opened it slowly. As the light crept inside, he saw, curled up in the corner, a reptile.

The snake hissed violently at the man and launched itself ferociously towards his neck before he had time to react, biting and knocking the man from his feet.

The snake continued to throw itself onto the man’s bloody body as he screamed and scrambled to get back inside. The screams echoed around the neighboured in the early morning, but no one could hear. The blood flowed freely from the two huge punctures on the man’s neck and pooled thickly on his white shirt.

The snake let another loud _hiss_ out as it wrapped its long, cold, slimy body around the man’s throat and constricted without holding back. It tightened around his neck and as the man began to lose his sight, eyeballs popping and veins engorging as he felt the light leave his life.

It had only taken the fast acting poison from the reptile a few minutes to reach the man’s heart, at which point, after agonising pain, the man stopped screaming and struggling.

His body went limp in the snake’s embrace. The snake released its death grip on the man’s throat, snapping his neck with a violent _crunch_ as it did so.

 

Dan felt very pleased indeed as he watched the snake slither off into the distance from his vantage point on a nearby front lawn.

He grinned devilishly at the suffering.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so obviously I won't kill my uncle with a snake and a sassy letter but fuck, it makes me happy to imagine that I can.  
> It hurts that people out there will try to tear us down and disrespect us and attack us personally with such bullshit arguments and treat us as second class citizens, but that's life. This at least helps me feel better I guess...
> 
> Thanks guys :)


End file.
